The Births
by ariel2me
Summary: Lyanna and Rhaella, amidst the Rebellion.


**Lyanna**

Rhaegar had been convinced that their child would one day save the world. Lyanna had laughed at first. "How can you know? Are you a fortune teller?"

"It is prophesied," he had replied, with that look in his eyes that terrified her. But then he had smiled, smiled a wide grin while singing to her songs of courage and love, while rubbing her swelling belly. And she had chosen to believe what she desperately needed to believe, chosen to ignore his strange mutterings and his whispered confidences betrayed by sleep about '_three heads of the dragon_' and '_the prince who was promised_.'

He was not smiling when the Kingsguard came. He was not singing when he told her of her father's fate, of Brandon's fate. He did not mention how blue the winter roses were when she started screaming. She had spent all her tears for her father and her brother, she had none left when Rhaegar told her he had to leave.

"My father needs me. These men will protect you," he said, pointing to the knights in white staring at her with disgust in their eyes. She knew how they saw her. _He loves me too._ _He was the one who took me here, _she would have told them, if she thought it would have made a difference.

He was going to war against Robert Baratheon. He was going to war against Ned. _Her_ Ned. Her oldest brother now that Brandon was dead.

_Your grandfather murdered your other grandfather and one of your uncles in cold blood_, she envisioned telling her child one day.

_What kind of a daughter and a sister am I, that I could sit here waiting for the son of that monster to come back?_

But she could not have left even if she wanted to. Not now. The knights in white had their orders from their silver prince, and they were determined to carry it out.

When news came of Rhaegar's fate, her first thought, before grief set in, had been relief. Relief that it had not been Ned who lost his life. Relief too that it had not been Ned's hand administering the fatal blow. She would not have to tell her child one day, _"Your father lost his life in the hands of the brother I loved most."_

She was disloyal to Father and Brandon for shedding tears for the son of the man who had murdered them. She was disloyal to Rhaegar for being relieved that it had not been Ned who died. She had wronged everyone and everything, even the child growing inside her. No, she had wronged that child most of all, for what fate would await Rhaegar Targaryen's child, in the realm where Robert Baratheon was king?

Her child would be told nothing at all, she vowed, even before the blood, even before life started draining out of her. "Promise me, Ned," she begged her brother, when her prayers were answered and he came for her at last. She closed her eyes finally, listening to her brother's promise and her son's cries.

**Rhaella**

Rhaella did not cry when they told her about Aerys. She did not share the men's fury towards Jaime Lannister the Kingslayer, towards Tywin Lannister the traitor, even towards Robert Baratheon the usurper.

_You will each get your just rewards one day. Aerys did. Finally._

She had cried for Rhaegar, her first-born, her precious, misguided, beautiful son. She cried for Elia and for those poor children. "_Let them come with us to Dragonstone,"_ Rhaella had begged Aerys, even as his long nails were clawing all over her, tearing flesh as well as skin. But he had not listened. He had never listened to his wife. To his sister.

"We were born from the same mother! Of the same blood. How can you treat me in this manner?" She had asked him once, long ago, when his deviant behavior was only just beginning to show. He hit her so hard and so furiously that night she never asked the question again.

Viserys cried all the way to Dragonstone. She had no words left to console him, only touches and embraces. At night, he would rest his head on her swollen belly, whispering to the restless child kicking Rhaella inside.

"What are you telling your brother or sister?" Rhaella asked her son.

"I'm telling her to be a girl. So I can marry her and there will not be another war," Viserys replied, solemn. "I wish I had been a girl."

"Why? I love you as you are," she said, kissing his forehead.

"If I am a girl, Rhaegar could have married _me_. I would have made him love me. He would have cared nothing for that savage northern girl!"

Those were Aerys' words coming out of her son's mouth, Rhaella knew. She held him in a tight embrace and tried to convince him that it was not his fault.

Aerys was her brother, her flesh and blood, and yet she had never managed to make him love her. Then again, she had not loved him either. There was no fondness on either side, not before the marriage, and certainly not after.

Rhaella had thought Rhaegar's and Elia's marriage full of love and fondness, compared to her own. And yet Rhaegar had given it all up – not just his marriage but everything else too – for the sake of a girl so young Rhaella suspected she had only _just_ flowered.

A small part of Rhaella envied her son. If _she_ had had the courage, once upon a time, with her knight …

But then she remembered her dead grandchildren, and she envied Rhaegar no longer.

The baby came during a furious storm. She bit on the wood they had placed between her teeth and made no sound. Why was there so much blood this time? Too much blood, she knew from the faces of the women tending to her.

"It's a girl! Mother, it's a girl!" Viserys was shouting, full of excitement. But his face was growing blurrier and blurrier, and when they tried to hand the baby to her, Rhaella's arms stayed still, forever still.


End file.
